by Matthew Peed
Tunnel Goblin Claw – Natural Weapons (+10)
Tunnel Goblin Fangs – Eat Anything (+4)
I decided I shouldn’t absorb any more hearts until I knew what Savagery did. About thirty seconds passed while I was looking over the status screen, then I felt my fingers start to throb. It quickly became painful as I watched my nails extend to sharp points. The rapid growth caused my fingertips to bleed, turning them red.
After about a minute, it finally faded to a dull ache. My nails were almost an inch long now. I guess I should call them claws. I looked to the dead body and tested one of my claws on it. It easily opened a gash.
“This could be useful.” I knew I was likely giving a creepy smile.
Chapter 9: Changes
Lance Teron
My mouth started to hurt soon after my claws calmed down. It didn’t last long, but it felt like I had a major toothache. I had to grit my teeth until the pain passed. After about a minute, I was able to take a deep breath and then glanced at the bones that I had left to harvest.
Just imagining the pain that they would cause made me hesitate. I steeled myself and absorbed the bones with Harvest. My body tensed and I shot forward, slamming my head on the wall next to me. I started coughing as the pain grew more intense, and wetness began running down my lips.
Nearly ten minutes passed before the pain passed. “No absorbing harvests during a battle . . .” I mumbled as I relaxed against the wall.
Skills: Harvest
Harvests: Scale of the Corrupted Lizard – 50% Poison Resistance
Tunnel Goblin Heart – Savagery
Tunnel Goblin Claw – Natural Weapons (+10)
Tunnel Goblin Fangs – Eat Anything (+4)
Tunnel Goblin Bones – Durable (+3)
Hopefully, that meant I would be harder to break from now on. I glanced at my phone and saw thirty minutes had passed. Almost on cue, the body next to me vanished into a burst of light.
I got up and gathered my things. It was time to head for the next one. I wasn’t sure but it felt as though about five minutes passed before I found the next goblin. It was leaning against the wall, eating something. It looked like a leg of a large rodent, though that was just a guess. I used Harvest, and the parts of the goblin lit up. To my surprise, the leg the goblin was eating also lit up.
This one would be a bit tougher since I couldn’t sneak up on it. I pulled the spear I’d taken from the last goblin. Well, it was more along the lines of a stick, but beggars couldn’t be choosers. I had to hope this thing wasn’t a master fighter or I would be screwed.
Lining up with the goblin as best as I could, I charged down the passage. I was only about fifteen feet from where it stood at the corner, and I crossed most of it without the goblin even reacting. It blinked, then dropped the leg it was eating and attempted to pull its sword out of its scabbard. I managed to reach it first, and the stone spearhead sank into its shoulder.
The goblin wasn’t done with that though. It lurched forward with a growling yelp, and the spear broke, allowing it to shorten the distance between us in a blink of an eye. Something throbbed inside my chest, and my arm reacted without my conscious thought.
I stared at the scene in front of me for a good ten seconds. My hand was plunged through the goblin’s chest. The sticky wetness of its blood dripped from my fingers and flowed down my arm. I quickly pulled my arm back and realized that I’d pulled its heart out. I didn’t even remember grabbing it. Shouldn’t that be something a person remembers lacing their hands around?
The goblin was very much dead as it slid to the ground almost in slow motion. I stepped back and leaned against the wall. I felt an ache in my arm and noticed that the goblin had managed to land a blow after all. Three long cuts ran down my arm, though they’d already stopped bleeding.
I took a deep breath and reached forward to start harvesting the parts. This time it was the claws, fangs, ears, and the heart. Since I knew the bones should work as well, I went ahead and harvested those. It didn’t add much time on a creature this size.
I rubbed my ears, worried they would take the flap version like a goblin. I just prayed that wouldn’t be the case and proceeded to absorb everything. I found that the bones turned to dust when I tried to absorb them. My claws and teeth grew sharper but didn’t change too much. While my ears did gain small points, that was the extent of it.
I hovered my hand over the heart. The pain as well as the lack of knowledge made me hesitate. While I was sure the savagery trait was what had helped me in the last battle, I worried that if it got too strong, I wouldn’t be able to control myself. There were plenty of such cases with other abilities. Or at least, that’s what a lot of users claimed when they were taken to court.
I gritted my teeth and absorbed it. I needed to go for broke. I’d likely be fighting half the city while trying to prove my innocence. I needed the strength to back my words. The pain surged in my chest as the goblin’s heart melted into me. Thankfully, it didn’t last as long.
When the pain had faded, I checked my status. Surely, I should have gained a level by now. Two monsters were a lot, but I was only level six to begin with. It didn’t take much to level before level ten.
Lance Teron
Age: 20
Level: 7
Race: Human
Type: Harvester
Aether: 70/100
Skills: Harvest
Harvests: Scale of the Corrupted Lizard – 50% Poison Resistance
Tunnel Goblin Heart – Savagery +2
Tunnel Goblin Claw – Natural Weapons (+15)
Tunnel Goblin Fangs – Eat Anything (+7)
Tunnel Goblin Bones – Durable (+3)
Tunnel Goblin Ear – Keen Hearing
Tunnel Rat Tendon – Scurry
Achievements: Trading With Chaos – You achieved something few could claim. While it might appear to be dumb luck, even luck has a place in the universe. Aether gain +1 per hour.
“Level seven. Better than nothing,” I mumbled to myself, waving the screen away. It’d be nice if one of my harvests gave me an ability. Something to hope for going forward I supposed.
~~~
I’d been in the stinking dungeon for a day. I’d expected the smell to fade to the background like most smells did after a while, but no such luck. At least I’d managed to kill fifteen goblins. There was a significant amount of blood covering me to attest to that fact. Most of it the goblins’.
Lance Teron
Age: 20
Level: 11
Race: Human
Type: Harvester
Aether: 100/110
Skills: Harvest
Harvests: Scale of the Corrupted Lizard – 50% Poison Resistance
Tunnel Goblin Heart – Savagery +10 -> (Malice +2)
Tunnel Goblin Lung – Poison Breath (+2)
Tunnel Goblin Claw – Natural Weapons (+35)
Tunnel Goblin Fangs – Eat Anything (+20)
Tunnel Goblin Bones – Durable (+8)
Tunnel Goblin Ear – Keen Hearing (+4)
Tunnel Rat Tendon – Scurry (+2)
Achievements: Trading With Chaos – You achieved something few could claim. While it might appear to be dumb luck, even luck has a place in the universe. Aether gain +1 per hour.
After killing fifteen goblins, I’d harvested quite a bit. I’d stopped absorbing hearts, though. When I’d absorbed the eleventh, the label changed. Now, I had to control myself, or I’d try to literally tear the monster apart. There were some benefits. Or I chose to see them that way. I didn’t feel fear. At least, not of the goblins.
I dismissed the list and walked around the corner. Two goblins were circling a third they were beating up. I focused and used Scurry to shoot across the distance in two blinks of an eye. Before the goblins could react, I shoved my right hand through one while spinning and kicking the second square in the jaw, sending its head reeling up. I yanked my hand free and swung my left like you would a knife. Blood sprayed from the goblin’s spli
t throat.
The goblin on the ground managed to react and threw a dagger that sank into my thigh. I glanced at it before descending on the goblin. My vision went red.
I took several deep breaths after some time, I’m not sure how long exactly. The goblin under me had been torn to pieces. “Damn it. Going to have to find a way to limit this!” I said with a growl while I absorbed everything that was still salvageable.
Turned out that I could not absorb something that was in pieces. I thought about the pretty dungeon core girl to help calm my raging heart. It was something I’d started doing when Savagery hit seven. I wasn’t sure why, but the image of the girl just calmed me for some reason.
I rounded the corner and found a wide entrance in front of me. “The second floor. I didn’t plan to actually make it this far. Should I go forward?”
It was true, the first-floor goblins really hadn’t been a challenge for me. Still, dungeons weren’t really a place you soloed. I shrugged and decided that I might as well go as far as I could.
I started to move forward when something caught my eye. In a recess sat a chest that had gathered a good layer of dust. I moved over carefully in case it was a trap. I wasn’t really trained for trap detection, thus I just checked for the standard stuff, mainly tripwires. I was about a yard from the chest, when my vision turned red.
I blinked and found my hand was elbow deep in what turned out to be a mimic. The monster jerked twice before it started to lose its shape. I quickly used harvest and yanked a sac-like organ out of the melting creature. Soon all that remained was a puddle of brownish-red blood and goo.
Lower Mimic Storage Sac – Storage
A weird flood of knowledge washed over me. I found I could access a Storage dimension by inserting some Aether into a spot in my body. I did so and was even more surprised to find there was already an item inside. This was even a dungeon item. It could be worth thousands if not hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Vlac the Destroyer’s Cleaver – A goblin with dreams of ruling new lands, he sought out a famous dwarven crafter to make a weapon worthy of him. It’s too bad he lost to greed and was eaten by a lowly mimic.
I eyed the weapon and had to whistle. It was quite beautiful. The handle wrapped from front toward the back, which allowed for several methods of use. I played with it for a few minutes before I grinned. Maybe the next floor wouldn’t be so hard after all.
Chapter 10: Time’s Up!
Azaria
“There we go!” I finished putting the last touches on the first and second floor. While the mansion had been nice in its own right, it felt like a blank slate that hadn’t been colored yet. There wasn’t a lot for me to do, but I added some splashes of color here and there. The second floor’s multilevel maze was where I really spent all my time.
Color, decorations, furniture, and traps. Yes, traps. Starburst made me add them to both floors, using the poison we got from that guy. I didn’t know anything about poison, but even I could tell it was quite dangerous. For the most part, the traps were all the common ones that I could think of that I’d seen from movies and such.
With Starburst’s advisement, I’d put a pressure plate setup in the entrance room. There were various traps that could be activated, such as a needle trap that would fire at whoever was above it, and axes that would swing down from the ceiling. I wasn’t sure about those. They felt a bit lacking.
I wanted to make my dungeon cute but had to add all this deadly stuff. I thought Starburst was going to have an aneurysm when he found that I’d changed the maze color to pink. I made sure to add plenty of traps to it in case he threw a fit.
One of the biggest changes was the addition of a large Victorian chair in the center of the main room in the mansion floor. I couldn’t physically interact with anything, but after some practice I found I could sit on surfaces for some reason. I started using the chair to think or ignore Starburst, whichever came first.
“Girl!” Starburst called from the mansion’s entrance. For some reason, I could hear him no matter where I was in my field. It was actually annoying since it felt like I could never avoid him. I sank through the chair and floor, then made my way over to him.
“What?” I couldn’t help the yawn that escaped.
“It’s about time for the dungeon to open. Are you ready?”
I spun in the air slowly as I thought about it. “Probably not. I still don’t want to kill anyone, but I have a feeling I’m not going to have a choice in the matter,” I said, not hiding my pout. I knew Starburst could see me, so I made sure to convey my displeasure with some facial expressions. I didn’t know when someone else would be able to see me. Even Stella and Lucy couldn’t truly see me, only sense my presence and hear me.
“This is going to be difficult for you. You’re not supposed to have, well, feelings.”
I turned my head to the side. “Someone just had to fail when performing his evil ritual,” I said with a snicker and flew off. I only got a few feet before I felt something change. What looked like a pane of glass formed in front of me right at the center of the tunnel.
Some sort of morbid curiosity overcame me, and I moved forward to touch it. Everything vanished but the pane of glass. I’d barely placed my fingertip on the glass when cracks spiderwebbed in every direction. With a breaking sound, the pane of glass shattered and fell to the ground, where the pieces vanished.
Silence reigned for a split second before a wave of energy rushed in at me. My Aether went up by two hundred points before it stopped. The rush of energy caused my astral form to be thrown to the ground. With my head spinning, I realized that Starburst had caught me on his back.
“What is going on?” I asked, slightly dazed. I could hear the scared-girl tone in my voice, but that’s what I was at the moment.
“Your dungeon has synced with the world. People will now be able to go farther than the entrance of the tunnel. In other words, you’re open for business,” Starburst said with a laugh.
“Time to start killing . . .” I said and took a deep breath. I could feel the tears threatening to start at any moment. Starburst kept telling me it was for my own good and that I would get used to it. I didn’t want to get used to it.
“Well. Only if they fail. Hey, that . . . boy is back,” Starburst said, staring at the entrance.
I turned and saw that he was right. The guy I’d healed the other day was back. With him standing, it was hard to really tell what gender he was. He had long hair that reached his shoulders and a face that seemed to have both feminine and masculine charm to it. While he was tall, he wasn’t world-record-breaking. I’d have placed him around five foot seven or so inches.
“Looks like he’s done some work,” I commented, taking in his appearance. He was dressed in black clothes, with a few places that appeared to be made from leather. He held a large hatchet that was covered in blood.
“Girl, you might want to go back into the dungeon. He doesn’t seem to be the same person you talked to a week ago.”
I nodded. I was getting a deadly vibe from him. I hoped it wasn’t my fault.
Chapter 11: Hunt’s End
Lance Teron
The ground sloped as it led me farther down. I couldn’t be sure, but it felt close to twenty or so feet of descent. The connection was a winding turn, so I guessed I was either directly under the first floor or to the side. It was hard to know, given that it was nearly impossible to see. There was no light at all in the section between floors.
After about two minutes of carefully testing my way down, I came to the landing of the second floor. According to the website that I’d checked before going in, this should have been the last floor. Though, that information was over three months old. The regular divers hated this place. Not that I blamed them. The smell only got worse, if that was even possible.
The entrance closed behind me. That meant I couldn’t leave without finding the teleport matrix. I ran my finger down the handle of my new weapon. I wasn’t afraid. It may be
stupid, but I just didn’t feel any fear.
After feeling around, I found a pathway leading deeper into the dungeon. I didn’t have to struggle for too long, as light from a torch appeared around the next bend in the tunnel. I picked up my pace as the ground became more visible. Reaching the corner, I glanced around to see what I was dealing with, thankful there weren’t any goblins on the short trek to the lighted area.
That changed when I got there. Peeking around the corner, I saw a group of four goblins. They were better equipped than the goblins on the last floor. Not only that, but from the way they were holding themselves and conversing, I could tell they were smarter as well. How much smarter would be the real question.
They resembled a patrol or scouting party based on their composition: three with light leather armor covering their chests, one that wore a heavily decorated loincloth, and finally one that had both as well as a helmet. Their weapons ranged from clubs to swords. Thankfully, there were no long-range weapons like bows.
I scanned the party for a long time, trying to decide how to proceed. It would be difficult by myself. While I had a few advantages now, I was more likely to end up getting myself killed. After observing them for a minute, I used Harvest.
The scouts lit up like the goblins on the first floor. The other two lit up like a Christmas tree. I had to blink at how many of their parts were of decent quality. That also let me know that these goblins wouldn’t be as easy as I’d first hoped. If the part lit up, that meant they had the full advantage of it. I pulled my head back around carefully, then slid to the ground. How could I separate a few of them to let me deal with them quickly before the others came?
I glanced at my feet and saw a stone. I decided that having them come to me was less likely to get me killed than rushing them. Plus, they would be staggered as they came around the corner. Frankly, I was getting a magic-user vibe from Fancy Loincloth. Having the tunnel wall between us would be safer. With the scraps of a plan worked out, I grabbed the rock and stood back up.
